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Tips and Tricks
This page is for tips and tricks. Feel free to add your own. Needs This section is tips about Needs. You can see the needs of a prisoner if you hire a Psychologist. ^ After Alpha 11 release, prisoners put on their clothes after showering during free time also. * A good way to lower the recreation need is put a TV in the cell. * Freetime can lower many needs. * Visitation isn't really needed, as prisoners can just use the phone booth. Note that having Phone Tap is a good idea, just in case your inmates arrange contraband deliveries. * Put objects that lower needs in the Yard. Phone booths and TVs are good ones. * Having higher quality meals can improve standards. This can be changed in the policy menu. * Even without Freetime, you can still satisfy your inmates' needs by placing toilet, TV, shower, and other objects in canteen for prisoners to use after their meal. (By having showers in canteen, you do not need to have a separate shower time in your regime, and additional hour or two can be used for prisoners to do whatever they need to do) Rooms This section is about the rooms. * The Kitchen should have staff only doors as their entrance. This prevents prisoners from getting contraband. This doesn't apply if prisoners are working in the kitchen. If this is the case, place a metal detector at the door with a guard stationed nearby, because even minimum security inmates will attempt to smuggle out contraband. * As of Alpha 16, Solitary room does not require a Solitary Door. * The Kitchen and Canteen should be close to each other, this reduces the time for cooks to place food in the serving tables. * A good object to put in the Yard is a phone booth. * Building multiple Workshops is inefficient unless they are adjacent to each other. The prisoners will walk from workshop to workshop. * Workshops and kitchens should be placed close to Deliveries. * The bigger the Workshop, the more prisoners working. The maximum prisoner number that can work in a Workshop is 20. To get 20 prisoners to work in a Workshop, the room size has to be 240 (24x10 or 20x12 for example). * It is recommended to have your Workshop adjacent or close to Deliveries. This is because the sheet metal required is delivered there and where your prisoners (or if Deliveries is set to staff only, your workmen) will collect it from. * Workshops overflowing with Boards and Logs will cause the prisoners to mope about doing nothing. Sell excess Boards manually using the sell object tool to create demand and your prisoners will start sawing logs again. * The same goes for the Forestry, if there are too many logs in the workshop, trees will still be cut down but logs will stay in the Forestry instead of being taken to the workshop. Sell excess Boards, the prisoners will cut new ones and the problem will solve itself. * Staff rooms work best in the center of the prison so there is less of a distance for staff members to travel in order to reach it. * A good idea is to make the staff who wish to go to the Staff room walk through an Infirmary. That way, injured guards (or other staff members) can be healed on the way to the Staff room. * Laundry rooms are most efficient near your cell blocks. That way, there's less distance for your prisoners to travel between the two buildings. * Consider using holding rooms to hold prisoners en masse for great profit, the only downside is that prisons will crave Privacy. However this is not much of a problem if you serve their other needs and you will find yourself running a profitable prison without having individual cells. * Placing Solitary Doors in the entrances of Armouries decreases the chance of prisoners stealing guns during riots. Reduced Room Size : Many Rooms require a minimum size but often all that space isn't used. : The minimum size of 3x2 for a Cell can be removed through the Small Cells bureaucracy item, though cells will still require a Bed and Toilet. Security *A good way to stop escaping prisoners is fencing. Since you can't build in the road, and blocking the deliveries zone will stop prisoners from getting in, use a staff door and leave the deliveries zone out. You can also use the Road Gate to secure the area. *The more guards you hire, the higher security your prison will have against dangerous prisoners. *Ordering your guards to patrol in cell blocks by the cells will reduce Prisoner's danger rate and will help prisoners to not try to dig a tunnel out of their cell. *During a riot, you can send your guards in the areas controlled by prisoners (the red ones), but you can't hire new guards, inside those areas. *A good way to prevent fights in the showers is to put a shower in every cell, so the prisoners can take a shower during Freetime and Lockup (you should also add a drain to the exit of the cells). *Every room except the Cleaning Cupboard, Solitary, Execution, Morgue and Storage needs to have at least one guard stationed in it. If the room is behind staff only doors or better and is marked staff only in the Deployment screen, it is not quite as important, but still recommended. *Riot Guards may be effective and more strong against prisoner's attacks, but they will increase the danger level even if they do nothing. *Make sure to add a Guard on any infirmary only if there are usual fights, because when Prisoners go to infirmary, they may attack doctors. *Perimeter walls may be expensive and take a long time to build but they're a formidable barrier for prisoners attempting to tunnel out. *Riots usually start when lots of prisoners with high needs are free, and there are many prisoners in a common area, like a canteen, cellblock (outside of their cells), or in the yard. To better prevent the riots, you should build more and smaller cellblocks/canteens/yards etc. *If prisoners are trying to escape, put armed guards at the exits of your prison. *If there is a riot, sometimes, it's better to send the riot police, than the armed guards (if you don't want to stop it immediately, and there are no staff members in the area, which can be killed), because the armed guards may kill your prisoners and reduce the prison value. *Many fights and riots start when high security inmates are in the same areas as lower security ones. *Don't be shy to add extra jail doors in corridors. If you set them to be locked open, they won't hinder your staff or prisoners, but they will still lock closed if you lockdown the prison. Consider placing Solitary doors to make it even more difficult for the riot to spread. *Position your Visitation Room carefully. Keep it away from the prison population and in a secure wing like where your offices are, anything which is behind a few jail doors to make it harder for angry inmates to reach. You don't want to be responsible for the deaths of visitors due to an unguarded and vulnerable room. Also add guard dogs outside visitation so contraband does not get into the prison through visitors. *Build your Armoury in a secure place. If the prisoners are rioting or are trying to escape, they will try to break into the Armoury room, so they can steal shotguns, pistols and batons from there. *Use the armed guards carefully during a riot. Armed guards can kill your inmates with their shotguns, and the value of the prison will go down. Make sure the inmates don't beat up the armed guards, because they can pick up their weapons and use them. *Armed guards will fight with the inmates using the fists, and will use the shotguns, only if their lives are in danger (they are highly injured, or the inmates have dangerous weapons). After you hired at least one armed guard, you can press the "Free-Fire" button in the bottom-right corner, and they will start using the shotguns immediately. *In case of a riot, the guards will stay away from the areas controlled by prisoners (the red ones). These areas are too dangerous for them, and only the riot police, and armed guards can access the red areas. *As soon as a riot starts, pause the game and hire a few new guards right where the riot is happening. Sure, it may cost some money, but the riot will usually be almost instantly quelled, greatly lowering the amount of damage, injured, and dead. *If you have armed guards on patrol, every prisoner they pass will be temporarily suppressed and will be less likely to cause trouble. You can see how many are suppressed in the danger status bar. However, armed guards also slightly increase the danger level, so it's a careful balance. *If you have Dog Handlers on patrol, every prisoner they pass will be sniffed by the dog and if they have drugs, poison, or any other smelly stuff, they will be discovered and searched. *Dogs run much faster than prisoners do. Having a dog trainer on patrol near potential escape routes (i.e. the road) makes it much more difficult for prisoners to run to freedom. *The Tazer rollout in Bureaucracy will make your guards more expensive, but is very valuable in case of a riot. Every single guard will be able to knock out one prisoner instantly, making it much more difficult for the prisoners to outnumber the guards. You can also use the fact that guards instantly appear where you click when you hire them to your advantage and have them instantly taze any escaping prisoners by simply hiring a new guard right on top of the prisoner (As of alpha 25 this trick no longer works as guards must pass taser certificate program before getting tasers). *The body armor also makes your guards more expensive, but gives them better chances in combat with prisoners. Without body armor, having less than 1 guard to every attacking prisoner is very risky and likely to fail. With body armor, 2 guards together can usually take 3 attacking prisoners without too much trouble (meaning a riot of 30 prisoners only needs 20-25 guards to contain it, rather than 30 or more). *Combining both the Tazers and the body armour makes your guards extremely formidable. Riots of 50 prisoners could feasibly be stopped by only 20 guards. *The entrance to your canteen is a great place to put metal detectors, as prisoners will be forced to walk through them multiple times a day, twice for each meal. * It may seem to make sense to overpopulate your prison with armed guards, but if your prisoners are constantly under Suppression because there are armed guards everywhere they go, they will lose interest in signing up for reform programs, potentially crippling a notably viable source of income for your prison. Plus, they increase the Danger level. * Prisoners that continue to murder or break the rules (lots of times) should be locked in Supermax. If a Legendary Prisoner joins your prison, lock him in Supermax as SOON AS POSSIBLE and also make sure he cannot escape or murder prisoners easily. For example, (if you have more than 5 Super-Max Prisoners) create a separate wing from all the other prisoners and put a few armed guards as well. * To make Protective Custody a viable option, a separate unit of prison must be built for your snitching inmates. One very good strategy to prevent the murder of these prisoners is to built a protective wing where each cell is larger than usual and contains a shower, prayer mat, weight bench, TV, window and telephone. Then, place the inmate in permanent lockdown. This inmate has all need except freedom satisfied and are kept incredibly safe if they have a wall and an armed guard separating them from the general population of the prison. This can also be done with legendary prisoners to prevent them from causing havoc. The only problem is that the prisoners WILL NOT get fed, causing them to get angry.This may make them riot in their cells. **UNLESS! you have Alpha 30 and beyond because guards will deliver food from kitchen to prisoners.** * You should keep a few guard in the parole room, since a prisoner that is rejected for parole, might get angry and attack the parole officer and the parole lawyer. * Contraband can be shipped in from outside your prison, you can reduce the amount of contraband entering from the outside of your prison by placing the delivery in its own room with a metal detector at the entrance. Other * To stop prisoner intake, continuous intake must be off and all 3 prisoner threat levels must be off. To turn off the prisoner threat levels, go to the report, then prisoners tab and close all 3 levels. - Since Alpha 30 you can also specify the amount of prisoners your prison receives. - * It's recommended to take grants at the beginning of the game. They will help fund the prison. Use a grant mod to gain even more capital if you want to expand quicker. * Creating storage rooms will help you save money. Because when you dismantle something, it will not be dumped, and you can reuse it later. * It used to be that the only thing a Foreman does is research, and once you had researched Cleaning, Grounds Keeping, Prison Labour, and Clone, you could fire the Foreman to save money. However, post Alpha 18, you'll need the Foreman to teach inmates Workshop safety and Carpentry skills. * Focus on building a Workshop early in the game. A group of low risk security prisoners making plates will be easier to manage than a prison of high security prisoners and you will be spending less on the guard's wages, especially since update 30, where only the initial payment between prisoners differs. Also keep the amount of suppression low, so that your prisoners take up the reform programs. * Alpha 16 players can 'disassemble' trees and sell them to make quick, easy money. If you don't need the money immediately, the wood from the trees can be processed into planks by prisoners working in the workshop and will be worth more. Even further, prisoners trained in carpentry can use the carpenters table to turn the planks into beds, increasing profit even more. * You can left click on any staff member and right click a tile to force them to move to that tile. This is very useful for stopping fights, healing people, detecting drugs, etc. Note that doing this to any guard will remove them from their patrol or station, but another guard will (usually) pick it up after they leave. You can also do this with prisoners, and a guard will come along shortly to escort them to the location you desire. * Don't be afraid to sell your prison. It's likely your first prison is built very haphazardly, with buildings in semi-random, inefficient places, as you were still learning. However, selling your prison means you get to start over from scratch, but you start out with all the money you've earned and invested in your sold prison, allowing you to build with the intention of expanding, knowing how big things can eventually get. You can even make a new save then sell your prison, and you'll still be able to go back and play the first prison. * Assigning a guard to a security room with monitors will move that guard to a monitor on entering the room and opening the stationed spot again. This will cause all stations to be manned most of the time, as long as you have enough guards. * Replace shower time with free time, if prisoners want a shower they can have one and prisoners that don't want a shower can do what they like, this avoids jamming all your prisoners in one room where people could riot. * Early on, if you have minimum security prisoners it might actually be a benefit if you use riot guards as normal guards early on, and only have 2-3 guards to open doors, and do tasks. * Even though the Armed Guards may prevent the prisoners from causing trouble, by suppressing them, the suppressed prisoners may have trouble during the reform programs, because their concentration will be affected by their suppressed status. A good solution, is to keep the armed guards away from the classrooms and make sure that the prisoners spend some time away from the armed guards, before they go to the classroom. * A good way to reduce the re-offending chance of a prisoner, and also increase his chance for a parole, is to have him go to the chapel, because the Spiritual Guidance course is easy, and an inmate may pass it more than once, thereby improving his Reform status and decreasing his re-offending chance. * If a deadly prisoner is causing you trouble, by killing inmates or staff, during fights, you should lock him for the rest of his sentence (permanent punishment) in his cell, and also providing him with some equipment to satisfy his needs. Note that a guard will be sent to bring him food. In case he manages to break out of his cell during a riot, or an escape, you should deal with him using Armed Guards or Guard with tazers, because the regular guards might get killed. * Always use Large Water Pipes when connecting cold water pipes to boilers. This gives the maximum travel distance of hot water (59 blocks) versus Small Water Pipes which only grant a maximum of 46 blocks and decrease by 1 for each small pipe between the boiler and the nearest watered large pipe. * Adding sinks to the canteen allows cooks to wash trays much closer to the serving tables and reduces travel distance. * Typically, the ratio for refrigerators to cookers is 1:2, but having a 1:1, 2:1 or even higher ratio means that food is delivered to your prison half as often. This allows you to check ingredients for contraband much less frequently and catch more of it as it arrives. * Once you Have a basic prison running, there is a good way to raise mone. First you need an accountant with researched bank loans. Then, sell all you shares, then take a large bank loan which greatly decreases the prison value, meaning you can buy your shares for less money, after which you can repay the bank loan. Of course, the bank loan needs to be of sufficent size, or else the differance will be negative. * You can get Boilers to be inside walls by bulldozing (Demolish walls will not work, neither will clear indoor area because the area is still 'Indoors') a 4x3 rectangle, and then planning a 2x1 foundation in the middle (Where the new foundation does not touch other 'indoors' areas) and before the 2x1 foundation is completed, telling your workment to build a boiler in the same 2x1 area. The Little 2x1 foundation will form walls where the boiler will go, while the workment will still place the boiler in the walls. Afterwards you can fill in the rest of the bulldazed area using more foundations, but be careful not the include the boiler-wall combination in the new foundation, because it will be demolished.